The Book News We Covered This Week

The books colleges are reading in 2026, nominees for a literary prize cleared of using AI, the new trailer for Sense and Sensibility, and more. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the stories we covered ourselves on Book Riot this week.

The Books Colleges Are Choosing for Common Reads in 2026

Commonwealth Foundation Clears Writers Accused of Using AI

The verdict: “After a thorough consultation with our judges and careful consideration of all available information, we are satisfied that AI was not used to write the winning stories.”

But the damage is already done, as Granta has ended its partnership with the Commonwealth Foundation and will no longer publish the winning stories in its literary magazine.

Watch the New Trailer for SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Smells Like Queer Literary Spirit

Rather than changing their logo or incorporating rainbows into their marketing, they’ve partnered with local bookstores and organizations with pro-LGBTQIA+ philosophies to develop in-store takeovers and pop-up “Reading Room” libraries across the globe. These libraries center books by queer authors, inviting guests to not only engage with those works in store but to also bring home a free copy for themselves.

The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week

“Won’t Someone Think of the Children?”, Youth Library Cards and Privacy

The final installment in this series of posts about youth privacy and youth library cards in the public library brings the intertwining topics together in a Q+A intended to help libraries revisit their own policies. It’s also a piece intended to help the average library user understand what is happening in their own library and to advocate for stronger policies that protect young people and the libraries that serve them. I developed the questions, while Amy Mikel, Senior Director of Customer Experience at Brooklyn Public Library, who wrote last week’s incredible piece on library card policies being the new landscape of public library censorship, provided answers and insight from her research. These questions are organized around several themes.

And for All Access members, here are all the interesting links we bookmarked that didn’t make the cut for full Today in Books coverage.

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What are you reading? Let us know in the comments!